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The Answer To Your Cry For Help

ONLY 6 more days until the I Am Online Experience! My heart at michelecushatt.com is to create safe spaces for tough conversations about the tensions between real faith and real life. That’s why, starting October 2, I’m leading an honest, unplugged, and ongoing conversation about the question we all ask: “Who am I?” Want to know the truth about what God says about you? Ready to ask for help? Then join me, and let’s experience an identity transformation, together.

Help me. Please. I can’t do this alone.

I sat criss-cross on the carpet, my back up against my bed. Close by, my Bible sat open, full of answers, but I could not find them. I had no words save these eight.

Prayer delivered, I waited for rescue. Only the sky didn’t split open. Help didn’t burst through my bedroom door or ring my cell with deliverance. Instead, silence. And the weight of so many unknowns and impossibles clouding any clarity. I had no plan. No ideas.

Help me. Please. I can’t do this alone.

I’ve prayed a similar prayer many times in my life, when marriage proved hard and parenting felt impossible. When friendships disintegrated and ministry wounded. As illness threatened and the thought of death—and life—overwhelmed. Without answers or strength left to find them, I sank to the carpet with an eight-word plea.

Each time, I waited for angels to sing and God to descend. I lifted eyes to the ceiling, hoping he’d ride chariot from heaven and sweep all my cares away.

He didn’t.

Perhaps because He’d already delivered the help I needed, nestled in the eight words of my prayer.

Yes, I couldn’t do it alone. I wasn’t supposed to.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up believing independence was the epitome of maturity, the external evidence that I’d achieved adulthood. It seemed you couldn’t get a decent job unless you possessed it and couldn’t be a leader of any merit without it. To be a grown-up—and a woman of true faith—meant to be strong, self-sufficient, able to live and thrive without needing anything from anyone.

I was wrong. Horribly wrong.

Self-sufficiency wasn’t adulthood. Self-sufficiency was pride. Foolishness. And a fast-track to physical, emotional and spiritual devastation.

Confused, I tried to trace my steps back to the source of my false belief. Was I misled by the advice of well-meaning adults? Was it my own misappropriated Type-A enthusiasm? Of course, being raised in church, there was an assumption that I needed to “trust God,” lean on him alone when times got tough. To ask for help meant a lack of faith, right? God held all the answers; I only needed to turn to Him.

Yes, God holds all the answers. But I’d neglected an equally important truth: He often delivers those answers through people. And our relationship with them.

The aim of God in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of loving persons, with Himself included in that community as its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant. —Dallas Willard

For thirty minutes now, I’ve read those words by Dallas Willard, trying to articulate what my heart feels an urgency to say:

First, you don’t have to be strong. You don’t have to prove to all of us that you’re a faith warrior. Sometimes the most “spiritual” thing you can do is to admit you’re weak and without answers. It’s called humility. And God honors it {Prov. 3:34}. By the way? Paul—who showed more chops than most—didn’t hide his struggles; he leaned into them: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” {2 Cor. 12:9}

Second, God is with you. He isn’t up in heaven, aloof and looking down on your life with casual indifference. If you know Jesus, you have God’s Spirit living in you, and in the people around you, bringing you comfort in this moment and the ones yet to come. No need to keep your eyes to the ceiling for His arrival. He’s already come.

And third, you don’t have to do it alone. The battle of life and faith isn’t won by lone soldiers. We need each other. We need support and wisdom, accountability and prayer. Even in the perfection of the Eden’s garden, God declared it wasn’t “good for man to be alone” {Gen. 2:18}. God’s words, not mine. Friends, the same is true today. God created us for relationship, with Him and with each other. To neglect either one is to put ourselves at serious risk.

In short, let’s become a people that realize the answer to our cry for help is found in the relationships right in front of us: The presence of God. And the presence of His people.

11 thoughts on “The Answer To Your Cry For Help”

I just got out of the dentist to stop and read your post. Never am I dessapointed by your words pointing me to Jesus. Looking forward to starting this I AM online experience and anchoring myself further in Him.

I don’t often ask people for help because when I’ve done it in the past I’ve been criticized or belittled, accused of being irresponsible, that my need was my own fault or that someone else’s need was greater. I’ve been told my faith was small, that I must have some hidden sin blocking God’s blessing.

Or I’ve had people make empty promises, offers of help that they didn’t make good on.

So I don’t ask people for help, because it feels like shame to need what they could give but will not.

I’m sorry, friend. It’s so painful to take a risk and then end up feeling rejected. Been there, and the sting lasted a long while. Praying you find the courage to try again, and that our God brings the right people.

Hi Michelle,
How you spoke from my heart!!
YES – God has done it through his son Jesus and with his Holy Spirit we even have him with us – every breath of our life.
Nevertheless we must live our life here with sometimes threatening circumstances.
.
So good to know I’m not alone – sisters and brothers all over this planet..
God said this even in the Garden Eden … a good thought,..
Thank you and God bless you and your loved ones.

I have always had a difficult time asking for help from God or anyone else because I had this crazy notion that I was supposed to be wise enough, strong enough to go it alone. With a cancer diagnosis came the revelation of JUST how in need I was of Him and all of the many people He has sent my way. I have learned to love my desperate need to lean against Him. It’s become my favorite place to be.

Asking for help from my God has intensified since my cancer diagnosis last year. And as He would have it, I have drawn nearer to Him and I believe He has drawn nearer to me-that’s His word. I’ve come to realize and appreciate so much the Christian women in my life that have stepped up to help me through the immense struggle I’ve been going through and I’m awed by how God orchestrated all these loving individuals together to pray for and lift me in prayers and how they continue to ask me how they can help…receiving that help humbles me and has changed me. Not perfect by any means, but I slowly give way to accepting His love through others.

Thank you, Michele, for always opening up your heart to us, not hiding the struggles and pointing us to our only Strength in our weakness. It makes me feel less alone. I so identify with that cry to God. Yes, it is hard for me to ask for help. When I was a youth I went to a pastor for counseling, and he spiritually, mentally, and sexually abused me. I have been hurt and betrayed by Christian communities and friends. Though I still need deeper healing, God has been so good to me. I have learned that God’s intentions are always honorable, and He will always be a safe place to go to for help. I am still working on asking people for help. It’s a process, but God is gradually helping me overcome some fears and insecurities. God has greatly used an online blogging community, including you, to help me along the way. I don’t go on Facebook, so I hope you will also be posting the study here on your blog. Blessings and hugs!

Because when my husband went to join GOD, I was to believe that I didn’t need anybody. That I was to stand by myself. But I have failed since he left. I have struggled out of stupidity. I have no belief in myself. I don’t know my worth or why am I alive.